A Reappraisal of Colour Symbolism in the Courtly Prose Fiction of Late-Medieval Castile

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Notes

1. Amorous narrative prose has been selected over poetry as a source of information about colour usage because its authors use colour adjectives in a context somewhat oriented to reality, and frequently add an explanation of what they mean. Poetry presents special difficulties because of the inherent constraints of conciseness, metre, and style, which cause poets to use colour terms figuratively without explanation. The sentimental romances consulted for this study are: Diego de San Pedro, Cárcel de amor, in Obras completas II, ed. Keith Whinnom (Madrid: Castalia, 1971) (Cárcel de amor); Nicolás Núñez, ‘Cárcel de amor’, in Dos opúsculos isabelinos, ed. Keith Whinnom, Exeter Hispanic Texts XXII (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1979) (Núñez); Diego de San Pedro, Tractado de amores de Arnalte e Lucenda in Obras completas I, ed. Keith Whinnom (Madrid: Castalia, 1973) (Arnalte); Juan de Flores, Grimalte y Gradissa, ed. Pamela Waley (London: Tamesis, 1971) (Grimalte); Question de amor de dos enamorados in Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Orígenes de la novela II (Buenos Aires: GLEM, 1962), 329–480 (Questión de amor); Juan Rodríguez del Padrón, Siervo libre de amor in Obras completas, ed. César Hernández Alonso (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1982) (Siervo); Juan de Segura, Proceso de cartas de amores, ed. Eugenio Alonso Martín, Pedro Aullón de Hareo, Pancracio Celdrán Gomariz, Javier Huerta Calvo (Madrid: El Archipiélago, 1980) (Proceso) ; Juan de Segura, Quexa y aviso contra amor in Proceso de carta de amores y Quexa y aviso contra amor por Juan de Segura. Cartas en refranes de Blasco de Garay. Diálogo de mujeres por Cristobal de Castillejo. Todo según la edición de Venecia, 1553, ed. Agustín González de Amezúa, prólogo Joaquín del Val, SBE, 2da época, 31 (Madrid: Sociedad de Bibliófilos Españoles, 1956) (Quexa); Triste deleytación, ed. Regula Rohland de Langbehn (Morón: Editorial Universidad de Morón, 1983). Other courtly works are: Juan de Flores, Triunfo de Amor, ed. Antonio Gargano (Pisa: Giardini, 1981); Ludovico Scrivá, Veneris tribunal, ed. Regula Rohland de Langbehn, Exeter Hispanic Texts XVII (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1983), and La coronación de la señora Gracisla in Dos opúsculos isabelinos, ed. Keith Whinnom, Exeter Hispanic Texts XXII (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1979) (Gracisla).

2. Processo de carta de amores, xxv.

3. ‘Adjetivos de color en el español medieval’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, V (1968), 463–72: 463.

4. Brightness in the classical period was a distinctive feature. Eleanor Irwin wrote: ‘They [the early Greeks] seem to have been sensitive to surfaces which were “bright and gleaming” as distinct from “bright” and those which were “dark with highlights” as distinct from “dark” ‘ (Colour Terms in Greek Poetry [Toronto: Hakkert, 1974], 202). Andres Kristol attributes the loss in Latin of CANDIDUS ‘bright white’ to the neutralization of the brightness feature; ATER ‘matte black’ lost ground to NIGER in the same way (Color: les langues romanes devant le phénomène de la couleur, Romanica Helvetica, LXXXVIII [Berne: Francke, 1978], 51). Thus, semantic shifts reflect a real change in the way speakers perceived colours. This culturally determined perception affects the way authors selected colour adjectives. Alfonso de Palencia supplies a concise colour theory: ‘Colores son candido o blanco & bermeio & amarillo & negro: muchas otras mezclas que enestos colores se fazen. Los colores se fazen perfectos con el calor del fuego o del sol. Solia se encomienço colar los colores por fazer los sotiles’, Universal vocabulario en latín y en romance: reproducción facsimilar de la edición de Sevilla 1490, 2 vols (Madrid: Comisión Permanente de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, 1967).

5. The Novels of Juan de Flores and Their European Diffusion: A Study on Comparative Literature (New York: Institute of French Studies, 1931), 266.

6. Another flower's nature carries more meaning than its colour. The right side of the tomb shows ‘un desnudo y lloroso ninyo’ (Cupid) on a leonado background (‘congoja’) rapidly picking adelfas, ‘oleander’. The inscription says that they represent ‘los deleytes de amores / cogidos para dolores’ (56). Adelfas figure in an Andalusian folk song: ‘A mi me llaman adelfa / Y soy adelfa del mar / la perdición de los hombres / la perdición de los hombres / A mi me van a llamar’ (Informant, J. Puerta Reed).

7. Herbert Kenyon, ‘Colour Symbolism in Early Spanish Ballads’, RR, VI (1915), 327-40.

8. I assume that colour terms like verde, although imprecise, are semantically identifiable. Kay and McDaniel question whether colour terms can be represented with ‘discrete semantic features’, and write: ‘We propose instead that color categories, … are continuous functions; and that a non-discrete formalism, in this instance fuzzy set theory, provides the most concise and adequate description of the semantics of basic color terms’ (Paul Kay and Chad K. McDaniel, ‘The Linguistic Significance of the Meanings of Basic Color Terms’, Language, LIV [1978], 620–44).

9. The unique head-to-foot description in Veneris Tribunal uses verdezitas in a non-chromatic way to describe breasts ‘dos verdezitas mançanas’ (17).

10. Francisco del Rosal, La razón de algunos refranes: alfabetos tercero y cuarto de origen y etymología de todos los vocablos de la lengua castellana, ed. B. Bussell Thompson (London: Tamesis, 1975), 107.

11. In the Arabian Nights, white was the colour of the Moslems, red of the Magians, blue of the Christians, and yellow of the Jews (Arabian Nights: The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, trans. Richard Burton, ed. Anthony Atha [New York: Excalibur Books, 1985], Eighth Night, 77). Peter Dronke identifies several tetrads from ancient sources that survived in the early Middle Ages with some variation: red (spring, air, south, childhood, sanguine humour); yellow (summer, fire, east, youth, bile, choleric humour); black (autumn, earth, north, manhood, black bile, melancholic humour); white (winter, water, west, age, phlegm, phlegmatic humour): The Medieval Poet and His World (Roma: Storia e Letteratura, 1984), 63–64; see later variants 68–72. Mosén Diego de Valera bases his explanation of heraldic colours on the four elements, their symbolic values; he names objects associated with each colour: amarillo is fire and is ‘al sol, al oro, a la estopasia, a la madreselua; sy a virtudes, a la temprança’; colorado is fire and is ‘a los relámpagos, al rubí, al aranbre, a la rrosa; en virtudes, a la mananimidad o grandesa de coraçon’; verde does not correspond to an element but is ‘a los prados, a la esmeralda, en virtudes, a la esperança’; azul is water, is ‘al cielo, al çafir, al lirio, al fierro; en virtudes a la lealtad’; morado has neither an elemental nor a virtuous value but is compared to ‘al balax (a balas ruby, pale rose in colour), al cobre, a la clauellina’ (Espejo de verdadera nobleza in Epístolas de Mosén Diego de Valera, ed. José Antonio de Balenchana [Madrid: Sociedad de Bibliófilos Españoles, 1878], 11.227). A Brazilian folklorist reports the meanings of colours in Catholic vestments and their associated days in the religious calendar: ‘Branco pureza, alegría dedicados aos santos não martirizados a Virgem Maria. Vermelho é sangue, sangue dos mártires, lingua de fogo de Pentecostes. Roxo, mortificaçao, tristeza recolhimento, Advento, Setuagésima, Quaresma, Semana Santa, Quatro Tempos, Vigílias, Rogações. Verde, futuro, confiança domingos depois de Pentecostes. Negro, luto, missa dos defuntos, Sexta-feira da Paixão, Finados’ (Luis da Camara Cascudo, Dicionário dos folclores brasileiros, 2 vols [Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, 1962], II, 240–41).

12. Martí de Riquer, Heráldica catalana des l’any 1130 al 1550, 2 vols (Barcelona: Quaderns Crema, 1983), I, 20. The sixteenth-century Tractat de Bernat Mestre I lists sabla ‘black’, ‘dolor’; sinoble ‘green’, ‘honor, amor, fortalesa’; porpra ‘liberalitat y senyoria’; azur (‘que en armas és blau’), ‘En virtuts la justicia, en las armes lealtat, en vestirs humilitat’; guella (‘qui vol dir vermell’), ‘En las virtuts prudència  … en los vestirs alegria’ (Riquer II, 610). Even in heraldry, symbolism is variable. Faber Birren lists: red (gules) courage and zeal; blue (azure) piety and sincerity; yellow or gold (or) honour and loyalty; green (vert) growth and hope; white or silver (argent) faith and purity; black (sable) grief and penitence; orange (tenné) strength and endurance; purple (murrey) royalty or rank (Color Psychology and Color Therapy, 1950 [rpt: New Hyde Parke: University Books, 1961], 173). Benjamin J. Kouwer lists: red: victory, triumph, dominance; blue: fidelity, constancy, humility; yellow or gold: excellence, intelligence, esteem, distinction; green: beauty, joy, friendship, health, hope; white or silver: purity, wisdom, innocence, joy; black: sadness, humility, serviceability; purple: dignity, dominance, frugality (Colours and Their Characters [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1949], 52).

13. Cancionero y obras en prosa, ed. Antonio Paz y Melia, Gesellschaft für Romanische Literatur XVI (Dresden: Niemeyer, 1907), 135.

14. Ysiana makes a chromatic and symbolic change: ‘A la fin han de tornar / lo leonado [distress] en pardillo, [tribulation] el morado [love] en amarillo [despair]’ (QA 361).

15. Place gives symbols but he does not share the basis for his assumptions: “dorado” (“gold”) might signify “faith” or “love” in the colour symbolism of the Renaissance; “verde” (“green”), “hope”; “encarnado” (“red”) “joy”, “azul” (“blue”), “steadfastness”; “pardillo” (“brownish-grey” i.e. “brown”) “pangs of love”; “naranjado” (“orange”), “constancy”; “morado” (“purple”), “love”; “pavonado” (“dark blue”), “steadfastness” or, less probably, a quality or emotion similar to that of “azul” (?); “grana” (“scarlet”), a quality or emotion similar, to that of “encarnado” (?); “blanco” (“white”), “purity” and also “despair” ‘ (Juan de Segura, Processo de cartas de amores: A critical edition of this first epistolary novel (1548) together with an English Translation, ed. Edwin B. Place [Evanston: Northwestern U.P., 1950], 98, n.107).

16. Kenyon, ‘Colour Symbolism’, 327.

17. La Spagna nella vita italiana durante la rinascenza, 4th ed., Scritti di Storia Letteraria e Politica VIII (Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1949), 131–45.

18. Ruth Matilda Anderson, Hispanic Costume: 1480–1530 (New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1979), 51, 100.

19. See Lope de Barrientos, La refundición de la crónica del Halconero, ed. Juan de Mata Carriazo, Colección de Crónicas Españolas IX (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1946), 28.60.

20. The author describes ‘unas antorchas los [rostros] tornavan negros, y otras amarillos y azules, y otras colorados y de quantas colores en el mundo son y de otras muy estrañas que jamás fueron vistas, que hun muy sotil maestro las fizo’ (42). Keith Whinnom allows that the author must have been present at royal festivities at which the guests enjoyed pyrotechnic displays although he concedes that the author may be exaggerating somewhat (Gracisla xxiii).

21. Dinko Cvitanovic, La novela sentimental española (Madrid: Editorial Prensa Española, 1973), 146.

22. Barbara Matulka says that many of the colours in Guevara's poem ‘coincide exactly with those introduced by Alonso de Córdova’ (271). See also a study of a poetically described tomb in which colour plays a part: ‘d'una madera amarilla / que llaman desesperar;  … las tejas puso leonadas / sobre tablas de pesar, / el suelo hizo de plomo / porqu'es pardillo metal’ (23), Patrizia Botta, ‘Una tomba emblematica per una morta incoronata: lettura del romance Gritando va el caballero’, Cultura Neolatina, XLV (1985), 201–95, at p. 213. See also John J. Reynolds, ‘Color Symbolism in Juan Timoneda's Poetry’, in Studies in Honour of Ruth Lee Kennedy, ed. Vern G. Williamsen and A. F. Michael Atlee (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Estudios de Hispanófila, 1977), 71–83.

23. Alfonso de Palencia, Universal vocabulario (ed. cit. in note 4 above); Antonio de Nebrija, Vocabulario de romance en latín: transcripción crítica de la edición revisada por el autor, Sevilla, 1516, ed. Gerald J. Macdonald (Philadelphia: Temple U. P., 1973); Andreas Alciati, Emblematum Liber: emblemas (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1975), 244.

24. Voir et nommer les couleurs (Nanterre: Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative, 1978), xix.

25. Tornay, xxxi.

26. Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye: The New Version (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1974), 331.

27. Andres Kristol notes the inadequacies of many dictionary entries which offer rare terms, archaisms, regionalisms or unclear examples. He singles out Spanish dictionaries in which all shades of red are defined in terms of each other (Color 179). J. André defines the red range in classical Latin: ‘1. rouge-feu; 2. rouge-vermillon [minium]; 3. rouge-escarlate [cocco rubeat]; 4. rouge-sang [sanguineus]; 5. rouge-carmin [pourpre rouge); 6. rouge-orange [croceus]’, Etude sur les termes de couleur dans la langue latine (Paris: Klincksieck, 1949), 75–77. R. M. Duncan did not use the novelas sentimentales for his survey. For ‘red’ he reports: ‘almagra (red ochre), alheñado, bermejo, carmesí (carmesí coco bistinto, cloth dyed first in blue and then in red), colorado, encarnizado, escarlata, grana, laca, roan, roxo, rubio sanguino, subrutil’; ‘Color Words in Medieval Spanish’, in Studies in Honor of Lloyd A. Kasten (Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1975), 53–71; 61–69. He notes that red is the most frequently-mentioned colour after black and white, and that bermejo is the most frequent term in the red range in his sample (63). Alfonso de Palencia lists: ‘Rubor como rubedo es color de las cosas bermeias’, ‘Ruber -bra -brum, lo que es bermeio’, ‘Rubicundus -da -dum, lo que muy mucho se muestra en bermeiezido’, and ‘Rubrum, en bermegezido, color de grana’. Another red term, burel, appears in Timoneda's ‘Dechado de colores’ and stands for loyalty. Reynolds identifies it as dark red but does not give a source for this judgement (73). The DRAE defines buriel: ‘De color rojo entre negro y leonado’, but the term does not appear in our sample.

28. See Kenyon, art. cit., 338.

29. See Núñez, ed. cit., 90.

30. See Duncan, ‘Adjetivos de color’, 468.

31. See Riquer, Heráldica catalana, I, 92.

32. Palencia defines: ‘Purpura, seda quermesi. Segund los latinos toma nombra de limpieza’. Another entry is: ‘Purpurare, es tiñir de color de quermesi. La purpura enla primer tintura toma color aguileño; en la segunda mas ruuio, ca luze con vna bermeiura negrestina. Enla tercera tintura toma perfecto color quermasi. Purpureus-a-um color de rosas, precioso & assi las vuas purpureas se dizen del color & mar purpureo quiere dezir profundo & bello; otrosi montaña purpurea por florida’. Palencia explains that MUREX is ‘real vestidura de quermesi, o color quermesi hecho de conchuelas, o yerua de que se faze aquel color’.

33. Jesusa Alfau de Solalinde, Nomenclatura de los tejidos españoles del siglo XIII, BRAE, Anejo XIX (Madrid: RAE, 1969), 112.

34. Juan de Mena makes the connection with royal garb (see MUREX in n.26); purpura was possibly a non-chromatic adjective: ‘De cándida púrpura su vestidura / bien denotava su grand señorío’ (72 ab). Blecua cites El Brocense: ‘Pero yo hallo en latín purpureus por cosa hermosa. Horacio en la primera Oda del quarto dixo purpureas spargam flores etc. Lumine vestit purpureo’, ed. José Manuel Blecua, Juan de Mena, El laberinto de fortuna o las trescientas, Clásicos Castellanos 119 (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1951), 42–43.

35. See Alfau de Solalinde, op. cit., 15–16, n.l.

36. Étude sur les termes, 97 (cf. n.27).

37. Joan Corominas and José Pascual, Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 4 vols (Madrid: Gredos, 1980). The problem oí grana is complicated because of its connection with textiles. Palencia writes: ‘Coccus en griego es vn gusanillo: & avn que la material del & dela purpura sea vna: pero hay gran diferençia del color por que la purpura mas negrestina se tiñe del primer color del humor de las conchas. Et delas ostreas y el cocco mas bermeio se tiñe del segundo’. Juan Ruiz uses ‘color fresco de grana’ to describe a heron's neck (1499c). Alfau de Solalinde, in her alphabetically arranged glossary, lists the following specifically red fabrics: alholla çendal bermeio, coco bistinto, escarlata, examin, grana, porpola bermeja, pres, rosada, rossett, sanguina. She wrote that fabric often took its name from its colour, e.g. blao, ‘tejido da lana azul’ verde, ‘tejido de este color’; rosada, ‘tejido de lana teñido en tono rojo claro o rosa’ (15), while others were called by their dyes, e.g. galabrún, ‘tejido de lana teñido con agalla’ (109) ; fustán, ‘un material teñido con fustic (rhus cotinus)’ (108). Nebrija translates ‘roxo’ as RUTILUS -A -UM, FLAVUS -A -UM, and ‘ruvia’ as ‘cosa FLAVUS -A -UM’.

38. See Anderson, op. cit., 252, n.54.

39. See Kristol, Color, 159–60.

40. Kenyon, art. cit., 338.

41. In addition to skin bronzed by the sun, André says that COLORATUS referred to skin coloured by makeup (125–26).

42. Palencia writes: ‘Coloro / as, dende colorado & coloraçion & color: & por conposiçion doblado color & transsdoblado, & por detraçion descolorado. Ytem por conposiçion multicolor & de vn color & de dos colores: & color bermeio & color blanco & que desdize enel color. Et assi de otros de ygual color. Los colores retoricos son qualidadas & maneras de dezir enla eloquentia ornada’. See André, 125–26.

43. Matulka, op. cit., 271.

44. Kenyon, art. cit., 330.

45. Other examples of leonado associated with anguish and suffering are: Laureola (Núñez, 62); in Questión de amor: Camilo de Leonís (341, 366); marqués de Persiana (340, 365) Ysiana (361); Porfisandria (362); el marqués de Guariano (364); el marqués Carliner (365); Esclauiano de la Torre (365); Count Sarriano (366); Alualaderde Caronís (366); Yusandriano (366); Galarino Difián (366).

46. Diego de San Pedro, Prison of Love 1492 together with the Continuation by Nicolás Núñez 1496, trans. Keith Whinnom (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U.P., 1979), 102, n.9.

47. Hernando del Castillo, Cancionero general sale nuevamente a luz reproducido en facsímile, ed. Antonio Rodríguez-Moñino (Madrid: Castalia, 1958), folio clxxi r.

48. Kenyon, art. cit., 338.

49. André, op. cit., 134.

50. Matulka, op. cit., 271.

51. Kenyon, art. cit., 338.

52. Is this transformation like the one Peter Dronke describes as a ‘sense of the dynamics of colour, mirrored also in the marvellously dynamic diction and syntax of the Greek’ in a poem by Paulus Silentiarius (58–59)? Cf. an achromatic garden transformation (Triste deleytación 23–24).

53. Kristol, op. cit., 220, 257.

54. The Waning of the Middle Ages (1949; rpt New York, Doubleday Anchor, 1954), 270–72.

55. Kenyon, art. cit., 338.

56. See Kristol, op. cit., 220. In Palencia's entry we see a typical semantic shift: ‘Glaucus color puesto algunas veces por verde, si con el verdor hay alguna mezcla de blanco. Glauci se dizen los oios reluzientes de color del mar. Glaucus nonbre de vn pexe que se diza assi por tener la tal color quasi blanco. Glaucon, en griego quiere dezir blanco, & color glauco si encaneçe’.

57. See Whinnom, Prison, 89, 104.

58. See Whinnom, Prison, 92, 105, n.52.

59. Matulka, op. cit., 272.

60. Matulka, op. cit., 280; Kristol, Color, 267; Alfau de Solalinde, op. cit., 72.

61. Fichter, ‘Color Symbolism in Lope de Vega’, RR XVIII (1927), 220–31.

62. Duncan, ‘Adjetivos’, 467, ‘Colour Words’, 63.

63. Palencia puts LURIDUS in the yellow range: ‘Lurido, loro, amarillo, color maculado, color triste & diuerso. Dizen se loros los ombres que tienen el cuero no del todo negro, saluo de tal manera amarillo que declina a negror’.

64. Palencia puts PUNICEUS and FERRUGO in the red range: ‘Puniceus -cea -ceum quiere dezir bermeio o rosado; Ferrugo es oscuridad o raedurra del fierro o ferrumbre negra del color de fierro, & color ferruginea que semeia a negror del fierro. Ferrugo es color de purpura entre obscura que declina a negror, dize se ferrugo por que qual quier purpura en su primera tintura se faze desta color obscuro’.

65. Kristol, Color, 112, n. 19.

66. Kristol, ‘II colore azurro’, 91.

67. Matulka, op. cit., 280.

68. Kenyon, art. cit., 338.

69. Matulka, op. cit., 272.

70. Matulka, op. cit., 272; Kenyon, art. cit., 338.

71. André, op. cit., 122–25.

72. Knstol, Color, 102.

73. Kenyon, art. cit., 234; Whinnom, Prison, 9, and Núñez, 89.

74. Duncan ‘Adjetivos’, 463–72 and ‘Colour Words’, 53–71.

75. Anderson, op. cit., 97.

76. The formulation is as follows: ‘1) All languages contain terms for black and white; 2) If a language contains three terms, then it contains a term for red; 3) If a language contains four terms, then it contains a term for either green or yellow (but not both); 4) If a language contains five terms, then it contains a term for green and yellow; 5) If a language contains six terms, then it contains a term for blue; 6) If a language contains seven terms, then it contains a term for brown; 7) If a language contains eight or more terms, then it contains a term for purple, pink, orange, grey, or some combination of these’ (Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution [Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1969], 2–3). See Tornay (xxvii-xxxix) for a critique and a summary of subsequent scholarly reaction.